If Seinfeld has taught us anything - and I have been led to believe it has - then today is a very important day.

Today is Festivus, and with it comes a key tradition: the airing of grievances.

What better a subject for that than a professional hockey team hoping to escape its rebuild?

When the season started, it was rife with grievances. The Flames were unwatchable, the entire season was lost because the new coach had no idea what he was doing, the abhorrent special teams only furthered that point, the kids that were just signed to big contracts turned out to be terrible after all, then the steady veterans we thought we could trust were also terrible, the new goaltending was bad, and we were going to have to start doing draft profiles in October.

But then the Flames started winning some games - some on a streak, even! - and things got less bad. Maybe the team started adjusting to that new coach, the special teams stopped being the worst ever, those kids started scoring and veterans started looking like their old selves, at least one goaltender rose from the ashes, and now, they're probably at least going to be playing meaningful games in March. At least. We hope.

Is JVR on the move in Toronto, Brandon Sutter is the teams 4th best center in Van, Jets bracing for expansion, are the Flames really for real, it's time to breakup McDavid and Lucic, the NHL needs to wake up, travel fatigue is truly a thing, early 2017 draft rankings and more in this week's Nation Roundup brought to you by Violent Gentlemen.

The Canucks didn't finish paying for Erik Gudbranson when they spent Jared McCann and a pair of picks to land the rugged blue liner from the Florida Panthers. Cap space is an asset, and the Canucks are a week away from the door opening to lay the ground work for how much they'll invest in their prized defenceman.

Gudbranson, playing on a one-year deal valued at $3.5-million, is a restricted free agent at season's end. The Canucks, though, can't begin contract negotiations until the turn of the calendar year.

That's a tall ask for a player who's never crested 15 points. Then again, Gudbranson's game is predicated on strong play away from the puck. He's a defensive defenceman first and foremost, so we should view him primarily through that lens. With that, let's dive into Gudbranson's career, what we should expect and whether that's worth anywhere near what he's asking.

The 2017 NHL Entry draft is still a little over six months away, but for some teams' fanbases (including that of the Vancouver Canucks), the draft can't come soon enough.

In the interest of being overprepared, I've put together a consolidated draft rankings, in the vein of what Tom Hunter and Jon Steitzer did for The Leafs Nation last year (and Tom is continuing to do this year at the Bloggers Tribune). Now we can get a nice early glimpse at who's projected to go at the top of the draft and throughout the first round, and by continuing to follow the ranks each month, we can get a good idea of whose stock is rising and falling.